


i'll be the moon that shines on your path

by nadin



Category: Wonder Woman (2017)
Genre: Angst, Christmas, F/M, Fluff, Steve Is Alive, and real, my Steve is always real, ww84 compliant (sort of)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-30
Updated: 2020-06-11
Packaged: 2021-02-27 06:07:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 16,708
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22022293
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nadin/pseuds/nadin
Summary: He could admit it now: he hadn’t believed until this moment he’d be able to find Diana, a single person in the world that was so big. And yet, here she was, right before his eyes, a legend and a goddess. And he could hardly believe it still, scared that she was merely a fevered dream of a lonely soldier.When Steve wakes up in the field in the middle of nowhere in 1984, the sky above him is grey and low. He doesn’t know why he is alive, or how it happened, but he knows that he needs to find Diana.
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Steve Trevor
Comments: 48
Kudos: 195





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> "It was meant to be shorter, but then it got out of hand" - a memoir by me
> 
> This is a Secret Santa gift for [iamproudlysmile](https://iamproudlysmile.tumblr.com/)
> 
> I did some mix-n-match with the plot and timelines to fit the story into the holiday theme. And I suppose it contains mild spoilers, if you haven't seen the trailer/read anything about WW84, so proceed with caution.

_Veld, 1918_

The snow had stopped sometime during the night, leaving only the faint smell of frost behind, which was paired with the bleak sunlight that was currently cutting through wispy clouds and filtering through the small window.

Steve picked up his shirt and shrugged it on. He glanced up at Diana as his fingers worked on buttoning it up. She was sitting on the edge of the bed putting on her greaves, her hair falling over one shoulder and her armour and gauntlets already affixed in place.

And just like every single time he’d looked at her since they had first met, his chest constricted with a longing that he had no right to own. Not when the rest of him felt so odd and out of place, and the world outside of this small room was an uncertain thing that he didn’t trust to grant him happiness this big for too long a time.

Last night, they had been playful, laughing and trading stories, _afterwards_. There had been a feeling of utter exhilaration in his chest that burned warmer than the fire in the hearth and the low husk of Diana’s voice enveloping around him, and the way she traced the old scar crossing his shoulder idly as they spoke had made something tender inside of him ache.

But right now, in the sobering light of morning, Steve couldn’t help but feel the sense of doom rolling over him, gnawing on his insides like a pack of angry wolves. 

He knew that one way or another, something was going to happen today from which there would be no coming back — and hadn’t he known that this moment would come when he’d chosen to go against the orders of his superiors? Wasn’t that the point? Either way, Steve didn’t harbour any illusions about the odds being in his favour. They hadn’t been for a long time now, not for any of them.

It hadn’t bothered him before. But that, apparently, was the problem with finding something that he wanted to live for. It made him scared.

“Steve.”

He blinked, zoning in on the room again—

—and found Diana standing before him, her eyes searching his.

If he had thought he was falling for her the night before, it was clear as day now (pun intended) that he was so far gone he could have laughed at himself, under different circumstances.

At present though, all he could do was register how dry his mouth had gone in just one instant. And how he could barely think straight. Or, more accurately, how the only thing he _could_ think of was what it felt like to kiss her and have the whole length of her body pressed to the whole length of his.

“We should…” Steve started and faltered. He cleared his throat and tried to work up a smile that didn’t quite get there, not entirely. He shoved his hands into the pockets of his pants, shaking his head a little as the corner of Diana’s mouth lifted. “We should probably go try to find some breakfast.”

He wasn’t hungry, his stomach was in knots and the prospect of walking out of this room was downright devastating. But his boys were waiting for them and the gala was mere hours away. And that was the only thing Steve could think of to say that wasn’t a mad plea to turn around and go back to where they had come from and let someone else deal with Ludendorff because, god help him, he had never been this frightened of losing something in his life.

“We should,” Diana agreed softly, but she didn’t step away from him or reach for her cloak and weapons sitting on a chair.

She moved to him instead, after a ridiculously long moment. And there was nothing Steve could do to stop himself from reaching for her, one of his hands anchored on the small of her back, another coming up to curl around the back of her neck.

Immediately, he felt her body deflate, her shoulders rounding forward and into him. She pressed her face against his throat, and the contract between the cool metal of her tiara and the warmth of her breath falling on his neck made Steve shiver.

Outside, he could hear the voices rising, the village waking up to see another day — with certainty he knew they hadn’t felt in a very long time. There was laughter drifting all the way up to this room, the neighing of horses and the yells of good morning across the plaza. A small dot on the map coming to life.

And amidst it all, there was the sound of his heartbeat that Steve was certain everyone in a ten-mile radius could hear and a silent plea to whoever or whatever might be listening running through his head over and over again, _Please don’t take this away from me_.

His hand slid up Diana’s neck and into her hair. He drew back just far enough away to turn his face and find her mouth with his. This, he thought as he kissed her, was scarier than death. The enormity of the thing blossoming inside of him that felt all-consuming as her own hands came to rest on his face, her lips eager against his and just as hungry.

“We should…” Diana started when she pulled back.

He heard her swallow, her eyes fluttering closed when he bowed his head and pressed his forehead against the metal star of her tiara, his fingers moving absently through her hair near the nape of her neck.

“Yeah,” he breathed.

There were things he wanted to tell her. Things that he didn’t know how to put into words yet, the sheer magnitude of them barely comprehensible, and the thought of trying to explain them laughable, somehow. And so he just stood there, breathing her in and wondering for perhaps the millionth time how could something this right could have come out of something as ugly as the war.

She had been full of steady assuredness last night but he didn’t try looking for it today. If her resolve waved, his, he knew, would shatter.

“Yeah,” he repeated and took a breath, reminding himself that they couldn’t put off leaving forever. “Diana...”

She looked up.

(So beautiful, he thought. How could someone real be so beautiful? It was like his brain short-circuited each time he laid his eyes on her.)

Her hand curled over a fistful of his shirt as she tugged him closer, bringing his mouth to hers and kissing him once more.

There was a promise to it — _and a promise is unbreakable_ — but underneath it, Steve could hear the clock ticking and their time running out.

* * *

Steve woke up with a heavy sky stretched above him filled with low grey clouds and the smell of cold mud permeating his senses to the point of making him feel nauseated. That, and the fact that the whole world sort of felt like it was swaying beneath him. Like a ship in a stormy sea. It made him wish he could reach out and grab hold of something, except nothing felt steady. 

It took him a few moments to gather his bearings, somewhat. And when he did, a few things registered at once.

First, he was cold. So cold that his teeth were chattering unevenly even though the touch of the air to his face didn’t feel all that frigid. It was almost as if the cold was coming from within him.

Second, there was the taste of ashes in his mouth even though the air, when he breathed it, was fresh. More fresh that Steve could remember from the past few years when everything around him smelled of blood and death and gunpowder and fuel exhaust.

Third, there was a rock or a stick poking rather uncomfortably into his left shoulder blade. Which was, perhaps, the only thing that kept his awareness focused.

And finally, it was the silence, so deafening he could hear the air coming in and out of his lungs and the steady thumping of his heart against the inside of his ribs. So deafening he could all but hear the Earth itself breathing beneath him.

It reminded him, oddly, of the first time he had ended up under artillery fire. That was when he had learned that a ‘rain of bullets’ wasn’t just a figure of speech. Not when they were coming in such quick succession like an actual, honest to god storm upon them. And then, afterwards, when it was over, there had been that eerie silence that had made him hold his breath until his lungs began to burn for fear of breaking it with a loud exhale. Lying at the bottom of a trench, breathing in heat and dust and the unmistakable whiff of blood emanating from the dead and wounded, Steve had been very aware of his heartbeats and his blood flowing in his veins and the fact that, miraculously, he was still alive.

Except now, it didn’t feel right, because he couldn’t be, he couldn’t still be alive. He had climbed into that plane, loaded with gas, and he had pulled the trigger—

The realization brought a cascade of memories.

The cold wind tugging at his clothes and whipping Diana’s hair against her bare shoulders and the words clogging in his throat because he didn’t know how to say them and his hands pressing his father’s watch into hers.

The sight of her hovering twenty feet above the tarmac minutes before that, and a voice booming across the stretch of the airfield coming from someone who had to be — who could _only be_ — the God of War? And Steve’s mind running in circles because it was _not possible_ , it couldn’t be.

And the dread sitting in his chest when he had realized how much of a fool he must have been to want something he knew could never be his. How the war was going to claim him, one way or another, and that the previous night with Diana might as well have been a dream. And the ache of that realization and wondering why it had to have happened like that, in such a twisted turn of fate.

Was he dead now? He sure didn’t feel very alive. But shouldn’t he feel _nothing_ then?

They hadn’t prepared him for this, Steve thought with something akin to hysterical laughter bubbling up in the back of his throat. They had taught him how to die but not how to deal with making it through it in one piece.

He breathed in, and once more, as if unable to get enough of it. And again. And that was when the pain exploded in his chest, the familiar sensation of cracked or broken ribs reminding him to take it easy. Except now he could also feel bile rising in his throat and he needed to maybe try to at least roll over—

A face appeared above Steve, blocking a chunk of the grey sky.

A man hovering over him had a thick beard streaked with grey and a wool hat pulled all the way down to his bushy brows. He was wearing a puffy coat like nothing that Steve had ever seen before and a thick knitted sweater underneath it. Because the day was already grey and what little light was coming from behind the stranger, Steve couldn’t read his face but if he had to guess, he’d say the man was frowning.

Steve blinked.

“You drunk?” the man asked in French.

Why would he be—

_Oh._

Did they end the war?

Steve’s heart tripped over itself and shifted into a whole new rhythm. Was he presumed drunk because everyone else had spent the night celebrating?

Before he could open his mouth to say anything, another face appeared over him. This time one of a scruffy dog.

The man stared. The dog stared, panting. Steve stared back. He could feel nausea rolling in his stomach. Could feel his head pounding dully — holy shit, had he _fallen from the sky?_

And then, it was as if someone had flipped a switch and the world turned black.

* * *

The next time Steve woke, it was from the noise and the light so bright it felt blinding even through his eyelids.

He blinked his eyes open, squinting against the glare of two overhead lamps mounted on the ceiling, their white light scorching his retinas.

The sound came rushing in, fast — voices, so many voices speaking over each other, and some odd persistent beeping in the distance. And the smell — sterility and food — that he wouldn’t have confused for anything.

A hospital.

Steve turned his head, looking around the room.

There appeared to be four beds sitting with their headboards against one wall with small white nightstands between them. Four chairs against the opposite wall (one of them currently holding what looked like Steve’s overcoat) and a chest of drawers in the centre, with some sort of box on top of it. Steve’s bed was the closest one to the window, and in the one next to him, a man with a cast on his leg was half sitting with his back leaning against his pillow, eating crackers from a crinkly bag. The other two beds were vacant, just bare striped mattresses waiting for new occupants.

There were voices coming from the hallway, although Steve couldn’t make out the words through the buzzing in his ears.

The pounding in his head from earlier had receded to a more tolerable although not any less irritable throb in the back of his skull. But even so, his thoughts had started to clear.

How the hell did he get here? And where was _here_?

And why was it—Well, he didn’t think that the hospital not being full was a bad thing, strictly speaking. But they tended to be, these days, what with the war and all that.

He filed his surprise away to deal with later.

Steve was about to introduce himself to his neighbour and maybe ask a question or two when he caught movement out of the corner of his eye. And the next moment, his jaw dropped and his eyes grew wide when it registered with him that the box sitting on top of the dresser wasn’t just a box. There was a moving picture inside of it, behind the curved glass screen. Like in movie theatres but small and _coloured_ , and coming seemingly from the inside instead of—

Rising on his elbow, he looked up, wondering if he’d find a projector mounted on a wall somewhere or any other source — anything! — feeling something inside of him twist when he saw nothing but just the expanse of white paint.

Much like in that field, his windpipe constricted, the confusion of the moment making his head spin.

His gaze drifted to the box again, his eyes narrowing as he tried to figure out what he was seeing.

It looked like a soccer game.

“What the hell—” he muttered.

“Ah, you’re awake!”

Steve snapped his head up to see a nurse in a pale-blue uniform making her way towards him. She was young and smiling, her hair gathered under a cap the same colour as her dress.

“Mathias, you shouldn’t eat that before dinner,” she chastised the man with a cast.

“When did I refuse dinner, Annette?” the man chuckled good-naturedly and fished another cracker out of his tiny bag.

For a moment, his eyes flickered curiously towards Steve, and then returned to the game unfolding in—whatever that thing was.

Steve felt like he was losing his mind.

The nurse stopped before him, and like each time Steve had ever been to a hospital before, he had to resist the temptation to pull the sheet up to his chin, like a shield.

“How are you feeling?” she asked as her hand moved to rest briefly on Steve’s forehead before she leaned in to check his eyes and then reached for his wrist, pressing her fingers to his pulse point. “The man who brought you in said you were disoriented.”

“I—” Steve started and swallowed, his mouth dry. It took him a second to realize that she was speaking French. And another one, to scramble for his less than stellar vocabulary. “Where am I?”

“The Central Hospital,” Annette said. “What is your name, Monsieur? Do you remember your name? You didn’t have any documents with you.”

“Steve. Steve Trevor.” His eyes darted around the room. “The Central Hospital _where_?”

He wanted to protest about the documents — because _of course,_ he had documents! — and then it hit him that he had given them to Sameer to hold on to right before they’d driven into the German High Command, on the off chance he got seized during the mission. His documents. His money.

The thought made Steve grimace.

“Liege?” the man — Mathias — said although it came out more as a question.

Liege? Steve felt his brows knit together. It was a few hours’ drive from Veld but why didn’t they take him to a field hospital in the area?

“What day is it?” he asked.

“November 12th,” Annette responded.

Two days. It had been two days. Okay, that wasn’t so bad.

He needed—

Steve ran a hand down his face. He needed to get out of here and find a way to get a hold of his guys. He needed to find Diana.

_Diana._

His heart gave a dull tug.

Were they looking for him? Or did they think he was dead?

The thought sent a trickle of cold dread down his spine. No, they wouldn’t—He thought of Diana’s hands and her whisper in the near-dark and the way his chest had felt too full with things he hadn’t felt in so long and how they made him ache in places he never knew existed.

He hoped they were alright. Sammy and Charlie and Chief. He hoped they’d survived that battle. God only knew what had gone down there after he had—

Another thought struck, pushing all the air out of his lungs once more.

“The armistice,” he said, his voice urgent and panicky even to his own ears. He made a grab for Annette’s wrist. “Did they sign the armistice?”

His eyes were darting between the nurse and man now, both of whom were looking at him with growing concern.

“Monsieur Trevor, is there someone you would like me to call for you?” Annette asked in a careful, placating, voice that only left Steve more agitated.

Who did she think she could call?

He just needed to know if the war—

“The war,” he repeated, frustrated, but let go of her. “Did the war end?”

“I think I should call the doctor,” Annette muttered.

“No, I need to—”

Steve made a move to sit up fully and a rib that he suspected was probably broken screamed in protest, leaving him hissing with pain.

“Monsieur, you need to lie down. You have a concussion. A cracked rib—” 

“No, you don’t understand. I have to find …” Carefully now, Steve rolled onto his side and pushed himself up, eyes roaming wildly around the room once, twice. Until they landed on a newspaper lying on the nightstand between his bed and Mathias’s, and he finished under his breath, “…find someone.”

A newspaper.

Surely, there would be something about the end of the war in a _newspaper_.

Steve snatched it, his eyes running over the headlines as he tried to decipher the French, his mind too scattered to make sense of what he was reading. There was an article about some summit in Paris, taking up most of the front page with two men shaking their hands. There was something off about it. Something about the way they looked—

In colour. The photograph, like the moving images in the weird box-thing, was _in colour_.

But it was not that fact that landed on him like a sucker punch, followed by another one, and then another one until there was no air left inside of him and no way of inhaling any.

It was the date right beneath the newspaper name, _Le Soir_ written in bold letters.

November 12, 1984.

Steve stared at it. And stared at it some more, waiting for something to click in his mind, for all of this to make sense. And then it began to blur before his eyes from looking at it for too long without blinking.

_1984._

What the hell was going on?

“You okay, pal?” Steve heard Mathias ask although his voice came low and dull, like from far away.

1984.

“Monsieur Trevor?” Annette touched Steve’s arm and then straightened up, looking wary when he flinched away from her. “I’ll go get the doctor.”

“No,” Steve breathed. He let go of the paper and let it fall in his lap. “No, I’m fine. I’m sorry, I—” 

What exactly was the doctor going to do? Hurl him back in time? Come in here and say that this was all an elaborate prank?

The thought nearly made him laugh. He would have laughed, if only all of this wasn’t so damn terrifying. If only he could breathe. Goddammit, he needed to breathe, but everything inside him seemed to have shrunk. Shrivelled when he wasn’t paying attention, and now he had lungs the size of raisins and a deflated balloon for a stomach.

He felt another wave of panic roll over him, threatening to sweep him under and drown him. _Diana_. It couldn’t be. How was it—he had to be dreaming. He had to be insane. Or dead. Could he be dead? Could it explain this?

“Perhaps, you would like something to eat?” Annette asked, her features softening with sympathy. 

She must have thought he was delusional, not in his right mind. 

Steve nodded, numbly. The thought of food felt nauseating, but he didn’t want to give them any more reason to think that he was losing his sanity — even if it was, in fact, what was happening. He knew all too well what they did with soldiers who couldn’t cope and keep it together. He couldn’t afford for that to happen.

Where the hell had he been for sixty-six years?

On instinct, his hand flew up to his face, a surge of panic kicking his heartbeat into a gallop. Had he—But no, his cheeks seemed smooth, if a little scruffy. 

“Is this new?” Steve asked Mathias, jerking his chin towards the paper.

The man nodded. “My wife brought it this morning,” he said and held out his bag of crackers. “You want some?”

Steve shook his head, his windpipe closing down again frighteningly fast, the room tilting a little around him and his breaths coming out short and shallow. He bunched his fist around the sheets covering his lap for something to hold on to before he slid off the face of the Earth altogether. Someone had changed him into hospital garb — a pair of cotton pants and a white shirt, and it was suddenly too much. All of this — the medicinal smell, the noise, the bright lights, the coarseness of the starched fabric against his skin.

He was dead.

He had to be dead, there was no other explanation and no coming back from it.

Steve thought again that he was going to be sick, and he probably would be if he’d eaten anything in the past twelve hours. As it was, there was a foul taste sitting in the back of his throat and his stomach continued to roll, as though angry at Steve for not giving it a chance to empty.

He closed his eyes, but it only made it worse, the room tipping even more. Concussion, the nurse had said. That would explain it. It wouldn’t explain anything else but it would sure as hell explain—

Steve snapped his eyes open.

Maybe he _was_ insane.

His gaze affixed on the goddamned box with the moving pictures again, and then the world upended once more, in a different direction. There on the screen, he could see a grainy image of someone—someone—

He squinted, trying to focus. Trying to see past the black dots dancing before his eyes. There on the screen, mid-flight with her lasso slithering through the air, was Diana.

His mouth fell open once more.

It couldn’t be.

“Yeah, I know,” Mathias whistled from his bed.

Out of the corner of his eye, Steve could see Mathias was also watching the box, somewhat in awe.

Diana.

 _His_ Diana.

The image wasn’t very clear, shown from far away, but he knew—he knew because—he would always know _her_.

Steve’s mouth went dry.

But how…?

After all this time—

The world around him came to a standstill, the sounds fading as if someone pulled a bag over his head. Slowly, as if worried about passing out, or maybe making everything around him shatter, Steve pushed the sheet aside and stepped onto the cool linoleum floor, walking slowly to the box thing.

It was her.

His heart ached. Everything inside of him ached.

_I love you. I wish we had more time._

“They call her Wonder Woman,” Mathias called after him.

Steve glanced at him. “What?”

Mathias waved his hand in the general direction of the box.

“They call her Wonder Woman,” he repeated.

When Steve turned towards the moving pictures, they were showing something else and Diana was gone.

“Who is she?”

Mathias shrugged. “Nobody knows. But she helps when people need help.”

_I will fight for those who cannot fight for themselves._

“Where?” Steve asked.

“Everywhere.” Mathias tossed another cracker into his mouth and shrugged. “But that just now,” he pointed at the screen, “that happened in London. Didn’t you see? It said so.”

* * *

The museum was dark and quiet when Diana stepped out of her office, the echo of her footsteps the only sound breaking the near-complete silence that had long settled over the empty hallways and spacious galleries. Her work was a carefully constructed world that knew little about her but that Diana cherished all the same.

She had come to America decades ago, following a conversation the details of which had started to blur in her mind no matter how hard she wanted to hold on to them. One about an endless blue sky on summer days and mountains as far as the eye could see and _more ice-cream that you can ever imagine, I swear, Diana_ that had been held as they lay tangled in sheets in a small room that felt larger than the world itself that night while Steve’s fingers threaded idly through her hair. The land of the free was what he had called it.

She had found the sky that reminded her of home, and the mountains he had been so fond of. And yes, the ice-cream. What she hadn’t found was peace, or the connection that she’d been yearning for. That, Diana suspected, would be yet another ghost for her to chase for as long as she walked the Earth. She had learned that freedom was all but an illusion, but then again, she had long known that many things were, by then.

Diana paused in front of one of the displays, the safety lights left for the night illuminating one of the hundreds of thousands of exhibits, a fragment of history that would have otherwise been forgotten.

Her fingers grazed along the smooth glass.

People always said that all one had to do was want something hard enough, and it would be right there, theirs for the taking. After all, America was the land of opportunities, of new beginnings. Diana had always found that sentiment flawed to the core. No matter how much she wished for the one thing she wanted more than anything else in the world, no matter how much she wanted it and how much she begged for it, her sheets remained cold, her house empty and the hole in her heart that Steve had left behind continued to grow bigger with each breath she took. He had never come back to her.

She stepped away from the display and headed towards the exit, allowing the deeper shadows to swallow her and muffle the sound of her footfalls.

Just wanting something, no matter how fiercely, was never going to be enough. 

* * *

London.

He needed to get to London.

Crazy as it was, having a plan calmed him some. Helped him stay focused. Grounded him the way only a purpose could even though London seemed awfully far away, once he’d given it some proper thinking.

But when did something like that ever stop him before?

Shockingly enough, sneaking out of the hospital turned out to be a much less arduous affair than Steve had expected.

In his time with the British Intelligence, he had to weasel his way in and out of situations that, if they’d gone wrong, could have cost him his life. And more. They could have had dire consequences for thousands of people.

 _Now_ it most certainly was not the case.

Steve waited until the lights went out for the night and his ward-mate fell asleep. The door to their room stood slightly ajar, and through the crack, he could hear the voices of night doctors and nurses. Quiet, unobtrusive sounds.

He slipped out of the bed and padded to the chair where his own clothes lay folded. The German uniform. The realization gave him a pause, brought a moment of revulsion and the cold shock of memories he didn’t want to relive. _(These were the clothes he had worn to the gala; these were the clothes he had died in.)_ Still, he stripped down to his underwear. The pants would have to do, he decided. And so would the shirt. He would have to leave the jacket with the German war insignia behind but his overcoat was inconspicuous enough. And warm, too.

He dressed quickly and pulled on his boots to the sound of Mathias soft snoring.

Earlier, he had washed as best he could in the communal bathroom down the hall and even shaved, having borrowed a razor from Mathias. But even then, feeling more like himself and looking more familiar to his own eyes, Steve had still found it hard to reconcile with the situation that made less sense to him the more he thought about it. The moment of wild panic he’d had earlier, about having aged in addition to having lost all those years had ended up being disproved, but deep down, he wasn’t sure if it had made everything better or worse. 

Glancing at Mathias, Steve pulled on his overcoat that still bore a faint scent of campfire and crossed the room, the linoleum squeaking softly under the soles of his boots. 

Outside, the hallway was empty and dimly lit by night lights. 

There were two nurses talking at the registration counter to his right. His pockets laden with the few bags of crackers and the couple of apples he had pilfered from the personnel kitchen earlier, Steve turned in the opposite direction.

The fire escape door at the end of the corridor wasn’t locked and the hinges gave no sound when Steve pushed it open. There were no footsteps behind him and no yells ordering him to stop and come back, and no one seemed to notice he was gone, or care. The first-floor hallway was just as deserted. (He wondered briefly if that was another sign of a world without war. _Before_ , he couldn’t recall going anywhere without running into soldiers or someone else asking questions. But the thought didn’t linger.) Another nurse was positioned at the desk near the door, but when Steve walked past her and out the door, she didn’t even look up.

The night was cold, with a bit of a chill to it that nipped at his cheeks and snaked into his sleeves, making him miss the jacket he’d had no choice but to leave behind. His mind still reeling, he turned and started to walk, in part desperate to put the hospital with its scents that made him think of death behind, and in part because it felt like doing something even though he wasn’t sure where he was supposed to go, yet. Because if he didn’t have a purpose, he would start feeling like he was drowning again, and he wasn’t sure if he’d know how to pull himself up if that happened.

It took him the better half of the night — and a few vague directions given by sparse passers-by — to find the train station. And another day to make it to London — hiding in luggage cars and compartments on the trains — via Brussels and then Paris and then Calais, before boarding the ferry that took him across the Channel.

He tried not to gawk, not to look too out of place, but it was hard. He couldn’t help staring at the clothes — so bright, as if daring. And at women wearing _pants_ — the first time he saw one, not long after he’d left the hospital, Steve had paused in his tracks, slack-jawed. And at the hair curled up on top of people’s heads. And at small portable music-playing devices with wires running to compact earphones that muffled it for everyone else but the person who was listening to it.

And the cars!

The cars were nothing like how he remembered them. They were slick and shiny and they didn’t smell as bad, and most of them had windows that rolled up and down, depending on how much fresh air people wanted inside. Admittedly, it seemed like a smart invention.

At least the trains didn’t change that much. They were newer, and more comfortable — he assumed from the confines of luggage cars — but they still were, well, trains. He hadn’t seen much of the Channel from the ferry, holed away among people’s travel bags and a cage or two carrying dogs. The dogs hadn’t given Steve a minute of their attention, as if they knew he was worse off than they were.

* * *

Steve had never been to Liege before, and thus he hadn’t had anything to compare it to.

London, on the other hand, was a different story altogether.

London was… overwhelming.

The coach driver who took pity on him when Steve told him he’d lost all his money — which wasn’t even a lie, in the general sense — dropped him and a handful of other passengers off at one of the stations near Hyde Park, spitting them out into the late afternoon.

Even rationing his scant supplies — and kicking himself for not taking more — Steve was down to only one apple and his stomach was growling from the smells of food wafting from the cafes and flats around him. People moved past him without care, the cars honked, the music played — and the dissonance between his memories and the reality before him was mind-blowing.

He felt lost and disoriented, and more bewildered than when an army of armed to the teeth Amazons had been staring down at him, hungry for revenge for their dead.

A shoulder rammed into his, sending Steve staggering a couple of steps.

“Watch it,” the voice came, but its owner disappeared in the crowd before Steve even registered it.

In all honesty, it wasn’t all that different from the London he knew, Steve thought as he watched the coaches and pedestrians and street vendors crowding narrow streets. But it also, well, was. In just about every sense that Steve could think of. The buildings were taller. And shinier. And the air felt cleaner even with car exhaust puffing out of vehicles that seemed to crowd every inch of narrow roads. He tried to imagine Diana in this world that looked so much flashier and just… couldn’t.

And it occurred to him then — for the first time in nearly twenty hours — that he had no idea what to do now. Too focused on getting here and not getting caught riding without a ticket, he hadn’t quite taken the time to consider his next steps.

Maybe he should have. Maybe that was where he should have _started_.

The memory of the footage on that screen came into focus in his head, but all he had seen was a piece of a building that could have been any building, and Diana — a bright flash against the grey sky. She wasn’t hovering above the city now — Steve ever looked up, because why wouldn’t he? As if that was any crazier than everything else that had happened to him recently. But the sky remained blissfully blue with scattered clouds.

Wonder Woman, that was what Mathias called Diana. Steve turned those words in his head this way and that, deciding in the end that they fit more than anything else he could think of.

What were the chances of him running into her? Of turning around the corner and seeing her walking towards him? In a city of several million, no less.

Probably low, if he continued to stand on the sidewalk while people pushed past him, Steve reasoned pragmatically with himself.

He began to walk.

He could ask around but Mathias said that no one knew who Wonder Woman was. Still, Steve wondered if it was worth the shot. Or if he was going to be sent to another hospital for—for breaking some social protocol? Like the couple that was kissing right on the street. Steve turned his eyes away, feeling the flush creep up his neck. It wasn’t unheard of to hold hands in his time, but he didn’t think he had ever seen anyone express their affection so openly — well, maybe the wives of the soldiers going off to war, but that felt different somehow. It hadn’t been _just because_ , in the middle of a street. 

He shoved his hands into the pockets of his overcoat and turned to cross the road, not wishing to walk past the couple, embarrassed to have witnessed something that was clearly immensely personal.

Steve wasn’t sure where he was going. Or what he was going to do. Or where he was going to sleep tonight, for that matter. He’d gotten a few bits of shut-eye here and there as he travelled, but the shock of the past couple of days was starting to catch up with him, weighing on him like a pile of rocks.

He didn’t even realize where he was until, suddenly, London no longer looked alien.

He stopped and looked around.

The world might have changed in the past decades, but not all of it. With a jolt of surprise, Steve saw that, unbeknownst to him, his legs had brought him to the area where Etta used to live. Sixty-six years ago.

Steve tipped his head back and looked up at the old building across the road.

His heart gave a few dull thuds against the inside of his chest.

It had been so long…

He squared his shoulders and started towards the door painted bright blue. Maybe whoever lived in Etta’s flat now would know something about her, or her family. He wasn’t sure what it mattered, or what he was going to do with that information, but it was something, he figured. 

Steve took the stairs to the third floor and knocked on the freshly painted door before he had a chance to change his mind. Or come to his senses. Whichever.

It swung open before he was ready for it, and for the second time in as many days, it was like someone had punched him in the solar plexus, leaving him disoriented and out of breath. And convinced that the whole thing with 1984 was nothing but some fevered dream.

“Etta?” he asked barely audibly.

“Yes?” the woman frowned slightly like anyone would when they couldn’t place someone who seemed to know them in their mind. “Do I know you?”

Steve blinked.

The woman before him was dressed in the same manner everyone seemed to be dressed, her hair a pile of tight curls on her head and her blue eyes studying him without comprehension.

She most certainly didn’t look to be over a hundred years old.

Maybe he was dreaming.

(Maybe he had lost his mind.)

“Etta Candy?” Steve clarified, dumbly.

The woman’s frown deepened, her expression growing more suspicious.

“Etta Sullivan,” she said after a moment. In _his_ Etta’s voice, goddammit. “Etta Candy was my grandmother’s maiden name. Who are you?”

Steve gaped at her, the air wheezing out of his lungs.

The foyer wasn’t well-lit, and now that she had said that, and now that a moment of pure mortification had passed, he could see it. The woman’s face was a little narrower, her lips slightly fuller and she was younger than _his_ Etta had been the last time he had seen her. But even so, the resemblance was uncanny. It was no wonder it landed on him like a blow.

“I’m looking for Diana,” he said before he knew to stop himself.

Because she wasn’t his Etta but she looked so much like her that the small moment of connection felt like too much to bear. And because he had no idea what else to say.

Another moment, and the woman’s eyes widened. Her hand flew to press to her mouth as she stared at him the way Steve suspected he had looked at her a minute ago.

Like she was seeing a ghost.

“You’re him,” she breathed. “You’re that man from grandma’s old photographs.”

It was Steve’s turn to frown, but before he had a chance to catch up with what she was talking about, Etta — a different Etta, but Etta nonetheless — was pulling him into the familiar hallway.

It wasn’t quite the same. Of course, not. Not after all that time, but Steve was suddenly awash with recognition. The furniture was different and so were the curtains and the million knick-knacks sitting around. But he knew where the kitchen was, and which room was the master bedroom and which floorboard in the living room would creak when you stepped on it.

Suddenly, Steve felt just a tiny bit less lost. 

\--- 

Etta dragged him, half-dazed, into the kitchen. She pulled his overcoat off and hung it on the peg in the hallway and then she pushed Steve into a chair at the table (that might or might not have been the one he had sat at before). She made him tea and a sandwich — Steve couldn’t help gawking at the packages she had pulled out of the refrigerator. He had never seen anything like it before, even though in the end, it was a ham and cheese sandwich he had received, with some pickles and what appeared to be mustard.

He wolfed it down in two bites, barely remembering when was the last time he had been so ravenous. After rations and beans cooked over the fire — his usual menu for the past year or so — the sandwich had tasted like a meal fit for the gods, no less.

And then, with the mug clasped between his palms — for comfort and warmth — Steve told her everything. About waking up in the field and the weird man and thinking that the air didn’t smell quite right. About the hospital and the weird box with images — Etta told him they called it _television_ — and seeing Diana. About his escape — not that it could be counted as such, Steve mused, when no one seemed to care he’d done it. About making it to London and then, somehow, finding this place.

He told her what had happened before that, too. Some of it. Enough to see her face change when he mentioned Etta — _his_ Etta. And maybe the things that his Etta had told to her granddaughter.

She took it in stride, too. Better than Steve had, at least. Be it for whose descendant she was, or maybe it was the whole Diana deal — and one couldn’t meet Diana and still not believe in the impossible — but Etta only raised her eyebrows once as he spoke. It happened when Steve told her about taking the food from the hospital kitchen.

“They had to have better stuff there than crackers,” she said, and there was only so much Steve could do to not burst out laughing.

Using his momentary distraction, she stood up and disappeared into the living room only to come back a mere half a minute later carrying two leather-bound books. Ones that, upon closer inspection when she dropping them on the table before him, turned out to be photo albums.

They spent the next hour going through photographs. There was one from his Etta’s wedding, of her and her husband, both of them looking so serious that Steve couldn’t help but smile. He had no doubt she had rolled her eyes when she’d first seen it. Then there were a few images of a toddler with a cheeky smile — Etta’s son, young Etta’s father.

“Dad used to call grandma Etta Senior, and me Etta Junior,” she told Steve, smiling fondly. “Used to drive grandma crazy but he never even considered another name for his daughter.”

She paused, and then turned to Steve.

“She was very fond of you, Steve. Used to call you the bravest man she’d ever met.”

“Used to call me different words,” Steve muttered with a chuckle.

Etta hummed. “No doubt about that.”

There were photos of the others, in those albums, too. From _after_. All of them, although not as detailed and not as numerous as the family ones.

Steve’s heart tripped and sprung into a gallop when he saw one of Diana, her hair gathered near the nape of her neck and her hands tucked into the pockets of her long coat, similar to the one they’d gotten for her at Selfridge’s. She was looking at the camera, dare and mischief in her eyes, but there was something underneath that, too. Something that nearly splintered him in half right there and then, that had him transfixed.

Steve studied it for a long time, taking in the small details — the curve of her smile and the strand of hair falling across her cheek and the slight tilt of her head. He had only seen her a few days ago — well, a few days for him. But she seemed so far away and so out of reach, it might have as well been centuries, and his longing for her grew beyond unbearable.

If the picture of Diana threw him off, it was the photo of Sameer and Charlie, arms slung over each other’s shoulders and smiles stretched ear to ear, that drove the truth home.

They were dead, had been for a very long time. Caught up in the craziness of his situation, Steve hadn’t taken the time to consider it before. Not really.

He could feel it now, the weight of the loss of something that he couldn’t put into words that sat heavy on his chest, an invisible hand grounding his insides into dust. Somehow, it had never crossed his mind that _he_ would be the one to outlive _them_.

And for the first time since he’d woken up in that field three days ago, he wept.

With his hand pressed to his mouth and his eyes squeezed shut, barely making a sound, he wept from loss and fear and confusion and the years they had all lost to war. And the realization that none of this was going to go back to the way it had been before that night when Steve had gone and blown himself up. He could find Diana, and he could find answers, and it still would never be the same. 

He felt Etta’s hand squeezing his shoulder briefly before she stood up to give him some space and to put the kettle on again.

It was only after the storm had passed, after another cup of tea was placed before him, that Steve finally asked the question that had brought him there in the first place.

“Is she here?” He looked up at Etta who met his eyes with a puzzled expression. “Diana. Is she here, in London?”

“No,” Etta shook her head. “She lives in America, in Washington.”

Steve blinked, so thrown by her words it rendered him speechless. He had spent hours today, trying to figure out how to find Diana in a city this huge where he was all but a grain of sand. He hadn’t thought he would have to look even farther.

And then his heart sank.

America was far away. He wondered if they had ships going there still — had to, probably. Or planes, maybe. If they had those tiny television boxes, surely there had to be planes flying across the ocean. But even so — he didn’t have any money and no documents, and the thought of spending weeks in some boiler room, hiding, made his stomach turn.

He’d do it. For Diana, he’d do it, without hesitation. He’d do anything. But even so, the enormity of that plan was overwhelming.

“What?” Steve asked, watching Etta’s expression turn into something that he found both familiar and slightly disconcerting.

That was the face of _his_ Etta who had once pointed a sword at one of Dr. Maru’s men. And the one who had brought Sir Patrick Morgan to a secret meeting because she knew he meant business while his generals continued to look the other way as their men died in droves. And the one who had broken hundreds of rules when Steve asked her to without batting an eye.

That look he was seeing right now? It meant trouble.

“My husband, Jeff, is a pilot employed by the British Postal Services,” she said pensively after a long moment, eyeing Steve with a speculative tilt of her head that made him shift nervously in his seat. “He will take you.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey folks... This was meant to be updated a while back. Like, six months ago. I don't have any excuses, except that life has been hectic, as I'm sure it's been for all of you. I do hope you'll read the second part and enjoy it nonetheless.

It shouldn’t have surprised Steve that he would find Diana at a gala. It was only fitting, he thought. A proverbial full circle of sorts, to complete the journey they had started sixty-six years ago. The only difference was that there were no angry Germans here, no lives at stake and time wasn’t running out faster than they could keep up.

(He wondered if his luck was going to hold and it would stay that way.)

Steve saw it straight away, lights and colours and music, and a red carpet running from the road to the doors that stood wide open. And beyond them—

He tried to curb his curiosity, equally drawn to and repelled by the noise that, in his time, would have been considered obscene, his senses overwhelmed. There were people everywhere, smiles and laughter. If the world as a whole was confusing, this place alone appeared alien, too bright and entirely beyond his comprehension.

Steve started towards the entrance, and then stopped, nearly tripping over himself when a black car pulled up to a stop a hundred yards ahead of him. The back door opened, and his heart stuttered in his chest. 

He watched Diana emerge onto the red carpet, white dress flowing over her body and making her look every inch the goddess that she was, there to bless the world with her divinity.

He stared at her, transfixed and lost and completely enthralled. In every memory he had of her, she was breathtakingly beautiful — more than he had ever thought was possible. And yet here she was, with her hair swept over one shoulder and her lips painted bright red, and the world swayed beneath him because she was so stunning he could barely breathe. 

Frozen to his spot, he watched her pause and nod a thank you to the man who had opened the door for her. And then she was moving again. Steve stared, and then stared some more, the slit on her dress running all the way up to the top of her thigh giving him a glimpse of her legs. Legs that he had a perfect memory of when they were wrapped—

He blinked, shaking off his daze, and hurried after her, desperate to catch up before she disappeared from his sight, ignoring the bewildered looks cast his way.

He jumped over the rope fencing running along the red carpet, reaching the entrance to… whatever this place was in two quick strides, Diana’s white dress never leaving his line of sight, like a beacon. Like firelight in the night—

A hand grabbed Steve by the sleeve of his jacket the second he stepped over the threshold.

“Your invitation, sir?”

Steve turned to find a man in an impeccable suit standing before him, eyeing him expectantly. Beyond him was an open room filled with light and glistening jewellery and champagne flutes. Under different circumstances, Steve would have gladly taken his time to study it some, to marvel at the effort that had gone into making this all happen.

“Sir?” the voice drew him in again. “Have you got an invitation?”

Steve blinked at him.

Of course, he didn’t have an invitation. The absurdity of the moment made him want to laugh. Some things never changed, he thought, as a sense of déjà vu swept over him, ridiculous in its clarity. He didn’t have an invitation, and neither did he have Sameer to talk them both out of this inconvenience.

“No, look, I just need to—” he started.

“I’m sorry, but I can’t let you in without an invitation.”

The man didn’t sound sorry at all.

“There’s someone I need to talk to,” Steve said, frustration building in his chest. How was it possible that it had been easier to sneak into the German High Command in the middle of the war than into some cocktail party in a time when the world no longer lived in a state of constant fright? “She’s right there,” he pointed behind the man’s shoulder. “If I could just…”

“Sir, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”

People were looking at them now, the conversations hushed as they found something more entertaining to enjoy.

How could this be happening when he was so close?

“Steve?”

He snapped his head up, his gaze zooming in on her shocked face, her eyes wide. He watched the colour drain from her features.

He blinked, and Diana was suddenly standing before him, sidestepping the man who had been so adamant to keep Steve away.

“Diana,” he breathed, nearly choking on her name.

She moved closed, her eyes frantic as she took him in, her brows knitting together when she noticed the war insignia on his German uniform. But hadn’t he—? He pushed the thought away. What did it matter?

“Steve,” she repeated, and when he looked up, there was a watery smile on her face and her eyes were bright with unshed tears, and God help him, she was so beautiful he could just stand there and look at her forever.

“Hey,” he murmured, his eyes roaming over her features while the rest of the world seemed to have fallen away.

He felt her palm slide down his arm. Her hand found his and squeezed it tight.

“Come with me,” she said, and he nodded, and then nodded again, knowing without a moment of doubt that he would be happy to follow her to the end of the world if she so pleased.

They wound their way between the other guests and patrons of the place, and Steve had to put it on good faith that she knew where they were going because his eyes never left her, his mind empty, the spacious room around them oddly quiet all of a sudden.

There was a mirror taking up half of the wall in a hallway. On instinct, Steve’s eyes went up. And he stopped in his tracks, his hand falling out of Diana’s grasp.

In the reflection, an old man with brittle skin was looking back at him. His hair was grey and almost entirely gone, his cheeks hollow and so lined with wrinkles it was hard to tell the shape of his face. Thin lips and pale blue eyes as though bleached by the sun. Steve lifted his hand to touch his cheek, and the man in the mirror did the same.

His heart sunk at the realization that time had finally caught up with him. He looked down at his knobby hands, marked with spots. And then up again, turning to Diana who was standing beside him, watching him calmly, completely unperturbed.

“Diana,” he said weakly, but she only smiled and moved closer so he could see them in the reflection side by side. Him, an ancient creature with his skin stretched tight over his bones, and her – an ageless beauty who would keep her youth long after there was no trace of him left in this world.

“It’s good to have you back, Steve,” she said with a touch of fondness in her voice.

He opened his mouth, but try as he might, he couldn’t make a sound.

A violent shudder jolted Steve awake, tossing him against a mailbag carrying at least thirty pounds of written correspondence. He snapped his eyes open, his breath trapped somewhere in his throat and his heart pounding so hard his ribs were at risk of being bruised. Never in his life had he been this happy to have his sleep disturbed.

“Sorry about that,” Jeff Sullivan, young Etta’s husband, called from the cockpit. He had to yell over the roar of the plane engines while the entire thing shook, the metal floor where Steve sat vibrating beneath him. “We’re dealing with some turbulence here, see. Hold on there!”

Steve let out a shuddering breath and ran his hand over his face, trying to push away the remnants of the dream. And then, as if catching himself, he looked down at his hands, feeling a wave of relief wash over him when he found them unchanged. A mirror would be nice, he thought, as he slumped back against the two bags of mail and rubbed his eyes, unease curling in his stomach.

“Steve?”

“Yeah, I’m alright,” he called back and swallowed when the words came out hoarse, his voice unsteady.

“Keep it that way. I’m about to start preparing for landing.” 

* * *

The massive form of the Smithsonian loomed above Steve against the steel-grey backdrop of the stormy sky.

With his head tipped back, he stared at it for a long moment. He’d made it this far, and suddenly, he was afraid. Diana was somewhere in there, in this building, and Steve was still trying to wrap his mind around the fact that she was working _at the Smithsonian_. Had been since Etta had told him that the night before. Which was… unimaginable, in so many ways.

It had barely been a week since Steve had seen her trying to work out the logistics of a revolving door and the meaning of the word secretary. Last night, Etta had offered to call someone who was Diana’s secretary now.

The thought still made Steve’s mind reel.

(Then again, was there anything that _wasn’t_ making it reel?)

He had declined, choosing, in a burst of cowardice, to make it a surprise appearance instead. That way, he would be able to take his time if he needed it. 

He wanted to march up those steps and demand to see Diana this very moment. He also wanted to fade into the background and curl in on himself until he could breathe again and the world stopped spinning so damn fast. He kept waiting for the illusion of this new reality to shatter before his eyes, and every moment it didn’t, it felt like he was merely biding his time, waiting for the other shoe to drop.

A gust of chilly wind snaked beneath his jacket, making him shiver.

Another moment, and the decision was made.

Steve squared his shoulders and took a breath. And then he started towards the entrance.

He had never been to Washington before and, stepping into the open concourse with its domed ceiling four floors above him, he felt his jaw go slack just a little bit more. There were marble and glass and bright lights and people milling all around him, the noise of it leaving him disoriented momentarily. 

How was he supposed to find Diana?

He looked around at the displays and the people in uniforms and the information boards and signs pointing towards different galleries and parts of the building. After a moment of hesitation, Steve headed towards a directory listing departments and the people working there and the nature of their activities. 

At least it was in English. Small mercies. (After nearly getting on the wrong train in Brussels, he was twitchy about getting lost.)

A couple of minutes and about half a list later, a woman in the blazer with the museum logo appeared at Steve’s side, a customary smile on her face.

“Are you doing alright, sir? Can I help you with anything?”

Steve snapped his head up.

“Yeah, actually…” he started, giving the concourse another sweep with his glance.

And froze, the rest of his sentence dying on his lips.

Diana appeared from one of the side corridors. She wasn’t wearing her armour — part of him had expected she would, maybe because that was the last memory he had of her. Which was foolish, of course. (And she wasn’t wearing the white dress from his dream, either. Much to his relief.)

Instead, she was dressed in a pair of slacks — Steve tried very hard not to gawk, but it was one thing that a lot of women he didn’t know were wearing pants, and then there was _Diana_ — and a silk blouse and a suit vest. Her hair, curling at the ends, was pulled back and tied in a ponytail at the nape of her neck. Even across the width of the concourse, he could see the softness of her gaze, the same light that he remembered radiating off of her when she walked through the crowd of people in Veld that had gathered to thank her.

Steve felt the air rush out of him faster than he knew how to draw more in.

She looked different, in those weird clothes, in this weird place, but also so achingly _the same_ it made something inside him unravel.

“Sir?” the woman at his side said, but her voice sounded muffled and barely registered in the periphery of Steve’s attention.

Steve ignored her.

He could admit it now: he hadn’t believed until this moment he’d be able to find Diana, a single person in the world that was so big. And yet, here she was, right before his eyes, a legend and a goddess. And he could hardly believe it still, scared that she was merely a dream of a lost soldier.

He started towards her, nearly tripping over himself for fear of having her vanish into thin air and about to call out her name.

And then stopped again when Diana’s face split into a warm, welcoming smile.

As if in slow motion, Steve watched her walk towards a man standing at one of the glass displays pushed against a wall. The man turned and his face brightened up at the sight of her. Diana leaned forward and kissed him on the cheek. Their lips were moving, but they were too far away for Steve to hear what they were saying. Not that it mattered, he thought absently as Diana reached over to give the man’s hand a squeeze.

The pit of his stomach grew hot with jealousy, his body feeling full of empty spaces and no memory of what was meant to fill them.

After everything he had seen and heard and experienced in the past few days, he should have stopped being shocked, perhaps. And yet, this moment arrived, and once again the ground was kicked from beneath his feet.

Steve hadn’t considered this scenario. It wouldn’t have surprised him if Diana had forgotten about him — it had been sixty-six years, after all. It wouldn’t have surprised him if she’d given him a cold shoulder upon meeting him again, looking at him as merely a footnote at the end of a chapter of her life she’d long left behind. Or even if he’d failed to find her at all.

But he hadn’t entertained the idea of her having moved on.

And why wouldn’t she? It hadn’t been her fault he had chosen to blow himself up and leave her behind, breaking every promise he’d ever made. It sure as hell wasn’t her fault he had come back now. She hadn’t asked for any of that, and she deserved to be happy. To be happy and loved and...

Jesus Christ, he was such an idiot.

Steve stumbled backwards, the space around him suddenly too crowded, too suffocating. His heart was pounding so fast it was making him queasy. He needed to get out of there, out where he could breathe again. 

Before she saw him.

Before he—before _he_ saw something else that he didn’t want to see. 

“Sir? Are you okay?” the woman asked, concerned.

His eyes never leaving Diana, Steve nodded numbly. He must have looked like a complete lunatic.

“Yeah, I—I have to—”

He jerked away from the woman when she touched the sleeve of his jacket, his elbow ramming into the wall. A jolt of white-hot pain shot up his shoulder, and the next moment, a loud wail pierced the air, swallowing the noise and bringing everyone to a standstill. Steve whipped around, noticing a small box on the wall he had bumped into. What the hell was it? Did it trigger that godawful sound when he touched it? He didn’t mean to—

“What are you doing?” a voice demanded. “Hey, you!”

Steve looked up and saw a guy in what looked like police uniform — some kind of guard? — rushing towards him, his eyes hard and furious.

“Don’t move!” he ordered sternly. 

And behind him—

Diana.

Steve dropped his hands to hang at his sides as their eyes met, the discomfort of the pain in his elbow fading in an instant now that he was looking at her. And having her look back.

He knew exactly when something inside of her clicked, could imagine the slight intake of her breath when her eyes widened and the colour drained from her face. He watched a storm of emotion chase across her features — disbelief and sadness and hope and so much anguish he could barely stand it.

The man was telling something to him, loudly. He was practically yelling at Steve. Something about a fire — was there a fire? He probably wouldn’t notice even if there was — and false alarms and offences. None of that registered or made any sense, the man’s voice nothing but white noise.

Diana’s lips were painted red and he could see them move, forming the shape of his name.

His heart slammed against the inside of his chest once, twice, three times, and then forgot what to do next.

Someone grabbed him by the arm, yanked him to the side. Finally, the alarm got turned off, and the silence that followed was somehow louder than that awful wailing, amplifying the ringing in his ears.

Diana was moving towards them now, walking purposefully across the concourse.

Steve continued to stare, ignoring the guard and the woman who had been speaking with him earlier still lingering nearby, his eyes never leaving Diana and his heart lodged in his throat. And then she was there, reaching for him, her hands moving over his face, his hair, down the front of his chest, her eyes wide and confused and frantic.

“Steve,” she breathed, a strangled half-sob that slashed across his senses.

He was wearing the clothes that Etta’s husband had lent him, clean and less likely to attract any attention, but he saw the way Diana’s gaze lingered on his coat — _her hands clutching the lapels, his hands on her elbows as the wind whipped around them, “Whatever it is, I can do it, let me do it.”_ The memory came crashing back as he watched Diana undoubtedly replay it in her mind as well.

Steve’s throat constricted. He caught her gaze; held it. “Hey,” he choked hoarsely.

The guard was speaking with them both now, his voice cutting through the haze in Steve’s head. _Miss Prince_ and _responsibility_ and _repercussions_. Neither of them seemed to hear him, though. 

“Steve,” Diana repeated, ignoring the man entirely. “But you’re—you were—”

“I know. I know.” He swallowed. “Diana, I—”

Her lips were quivering. He watched a slight frown appear between her brows. “But how—”

She looked up, lifted her hand to trace her fingers down his cheek. If seeing her hadn’t broken him already, this surely would have done the trick. As it was, though, he leaned towards her, leaned into her touch—

And then he remembered.

The man, from earlier. 

The memory was like a bucket full of cold water being dumped over him. 

Steve snapped his head up, his heart kicking wildly, sprinting against the inside of his ribs because the man… she had kissed the man, only minutes ago. Did she not?

Right now, over Diana’s shoulder, Steve watched a petite woman appear from one of the galleries. As soon as the man that had been with Diana earlier saw her, he swept her in his arms and kissed her — unlike that time in London, Steve didn’t look away — and then they started towards the exit, only glancing towards him and Diana once, with nothing more than cursory curiosity.

Steve felt his brows knit together, his mind sluggish.

“Steve?”

He felt Diana’s fingers on his jaw and dragged his eyes back to look at her, a watery, confused smile bubbling up to the surface.

“I don’t know,” he whispered, his voice breaking. “I don’t know how, but it’s me. Diana, it’s me.”

“It can’t be,” she murmured, her eyes darting over his featured. “How can it be—”

Her face started to crumple, her breath hitching with every inhale.

Steve dipped his head and pressed their foreheads together. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I’m sorry—” _I left you. I’m sorry it took me so long to come back._

She shook her head, her eyes bright with unshed tears and her lips trembling. And then she pulled him to her, winding her arms around his neck and holding him so tight Steve could all but feel the frantic thumping of her heart.

Relief washed over him like a tidal wave, a physical sensation that made him shudder and left him fearful that he might shatter from her touch. His arms moved to wrap around her, stiffly at first and then as tightly as he could bear, ignoring the protest of that goddamn rib that still hadn’t fully healed yet. Just so he could hold her, feel her. He pressed his face to her hair and inhaled, breathing her in, past the years and space and all the unsaid words that still existed between them.

_I love you. I missed you. Please forgive me, please don’t let me lose you again._

He didn’t even realize that Diana was crying until her voice pouring in his ear came out wrong, a forced, broken sound. Until he felt her shaking ever so slightly. Steve pulled back just far enough away to look at her, his hands coming up to cup her face, thumbs brushing the wetness from her cheeks as tenderness blossomed in his chest, taking up all the space behind his ribs. He leaned forward to press light kisses to her forehead, her temple, the tip of her nose as he breathed past everything he wanted to say to her, the words stuck in his throat.

“Diana…”

There was a pointed cough at their side and a quiet _Miss Prince, please_.

When Steve drew back, he saw that another man in uniform had joined the first one. Both of them appeared very serious but neither was looking at him or Diana directly, discomfort evident on their faces.

“Miss Prince, he can’t just,” the first one started, his eyes darting quickly towards Steve as the tops of his cheeks reddened. “Triggering fire alarm without reason is an offence,” he added, looking uncomfortable.

“I’m sure it was a misunderstanding,” Diana said, her voice bearing only the slightest trace of the earlier turmoil.

“We have to inform the authorities,” the second man added, glancing briefly at the first one. “I’m sorry, but such are the rules. It’s protocol—”

Dazed and more than a little disoriented, Steve turned to Diana who reached for his hand, her fingers weaving through his. Her touch soothed him, smoothing out the jagged edges of his soul that had been scraping against the soft parts inside of him.

He stopped hearing the words that were exchanged after that, his focus entirely on her and the regal profile of her face and the warmth of her hand in his, her grip firm and sure. Her shoulder was still pressed against his and Steve watched her, drinking her in. Watched her mouth move while she explained something to the men, something about making mistakes that didn’t hurt anyone, the sound of her voice more important than what she was saying.

And he thought, absently and like a man afflicted, that he could spend the rest of forever just looking at her, and he would die happy.

* * *

Eventually, Steve knew, he would remember what came afterwards. That one day, he would remember the guards agreeing to let him go without a fuss, merely warning him not to do it again. And following Diana to her office to collect her purse and coat — and how empty the museum seemed to be by then, the echo of their footsteps on the marble floor bouncing off the walls and domed ceiling. He would remember the office itself and the trip to her apartment under the pale light of the streetlights and the fact that she had only let go of his hand once — to put her coat on.

For now, what he did remember was stumbling into her flat and having his back pressed against the door as Diana surged forward to kiss him. His jacket falling to the floor. Her fingers carding through his hair, drawing him closer. And later, his hands moving along her skin and Diana’s voice whispering _I love you_ over and over again until Steve could hear the words coursing in his veins, his heart pumping them through his system. Until he could barely remember the time before she said them the first time. And his own desperate promises to never, ever leave her again.

Now, Diana was curled into him and his hand was moving idly over the expanse of her back while he was telling her everything — from the grey sky above the field in Belgium and the man with a dog, to staring at her like a moron across the thirty feet of marble floor at the Smithsonian several hours ago. 

The night had fallen in earnest by then, the darkness outside the glass balcony door in Diana’s bedroom dispersed only by the scattered lights of the city glistening below.

Eventually, Diana pulled back with a laugh. Propped up on her elbows, she settled on her stomach next to Steve.

“You did not,” she said, shaking her head incredulously, the smile dancing across her lips so majestic it was making something warm unspool in his chest. God help him, he loved her smile.

“Did, too!” he insisted, biting back his own laughter.

“You did not fly here in a cargo container.”

Steve shrugged and grinned at her. His cheeks were starting to hurt from smiling so much — he decidedly liked the feeling.

“Ask Etta. Ask her husband! He’ll probably tell that story for years. Although hopefully, without naming names.”

He tried not to think of how much his boys would have loved it. Sameer especially would have found it thrilling. And Charlie would have undoubtedly called them both _reckless bastards._

Diana hummed. “I’m sure he will.”

“It wasn’t so bad,” Steve said after a moment, chuckling.

He hadn’t had to stay inside it the whole time, just to get in and out of Jeff’s plane without anyone noticing him and starting to ask questions.

(Steve debated briefly whether or not he should tell Diana he would probably agree to get in that cargo container again just so he could fly in that plane that was nothing like anything he had ever seen. But decided against it, certain that it would lead to incessant teasing — and he had already given her plenty of reasons for that.)

He’d spent most of the flight exploring the small cabin and the cockpit, enthralled by how smooth and not at all bumpy it had felt. And trying not to think of the massive passenger liners he had seen as they drove past the airfields. Even with his knowledge of aerodynamics, Steve had found it had to understand how they took off and what it was like to share that experience with at least 200 other people. 

“There was no other way. Dead men can't go on ships and planes,” he added ruefully as an afterthought. 

And then regretted his words immediately when Diana's smile dimmed at his flippant attitude towards something that he knew had caused her a lot of pain. Watching her close off momentarily, he was uncertain if he should apologize and draw even more attention to it, or let it go. 

One day it would become one of those stories that sounded far more exciting than it really was, he thought. Like that story about crashing on Paradise Island that would probably live longer than Steve. One day, they would look back at the day when he’d pulled the trigger and blew up that gas and himself with it, and it would be just another moment in the long chain of events that had brought them together. 

Steve rolled onto his side, resting on his elbow, and reached over to sift his fingers through her hair, tuck it around her ear. He couldn't seem to stop touching her, but Diana didn't appear to mind.

“I still don’t know what happened, you know,” he said quietly, twisting a black strand around his fingers. “How I got to—” he cut off, struggling to find the right words.

 _Come back to life?_ It sounded ludicrous even in his head.

“Come back to me,” Diana finished for him, her phrasing, admittedly, making a whole lot of difference.

She dropped her gaze. For a few moments, Steve watched her fiddle with the sheet as she tried to work something out, her brows knitted together.

“I wished for it,” she said quietly, at last. “I’ve been wishing for it every day you were not with me. For a second chance to do everything we got robbed off too soon. For a chance to say everything I never got to say to you.”

Steve’s mouth curled up at the corner. He traced the curve of her shoulder with his hand.

“I suppose someone heard you,” he offered. 

Diana looked up.

There was a small smile on her lips and so much anguish in her eyes that it felt almost like a force field around her. Steve had only ever seen it once — on the outskirts of Veld after Ludendorff destroyed the village. The only difference was that then, she ached for the lives of other people but right now, her pain was turned inwards, towards her own losses that had left scars on her soul.

One day, Steve would ask her about it. About the things that had happened to her that had left her with pain planted all over her very being. Maybe, she would tell him, maybe she wouldn't. Maybe it would only matter that he had noticed, but he knew he would ask all the same. But not tonight.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said after another moment. “Not as much as I thought it would. When I woke up in that field, there were two things I wanted — to know what happened to me, and to find you again.” Diana watched him, her eyes flickering between his as he spoke. “But now I’m here. I’m with you, and… truth be told, I don’t care what kind of trick it was. I just want that time with you, Diana. Time that we never had, the first time around.”

“And if I’m not the person I once was?” she asked.

Steve’s heart gave an uneven thump, and he wondered for the millionth time how exactly could someone be exactly the same and yet so very different from who they were before. 

He opened his mouth to protest but her words gave him pause. He thought back to the time when they’d first met and the hope shining in her eyes and the steady certainty that she could save mankind from the worst it could become. He thought of the moment at the top of the watchtower when he watched her faith in everything she had ever known shatter because it had never been that simple, and the blame could never be assigned as easily as Diana wanted it to be.

And he wondered how many of those moments she had gone through over the years, and how many scars they had left her with. Many, he suspected. He might not know much about the world in 1984 but he knew enough to understand that beneath the veneer of novelties, it probably hadn’t changed all that much, at its essence. 

There was a right answer there somewhere, swirling in his head, but each time he tried it on his tongue, it felt all wrong and awkward. More patronizing than Diana deserved. Besides, he could admit now that she probably knew his world better than he ever would, all things considered. 

“One might say that after falling from the sky, I’m not exactly who I used to be either,” he said in the end and offered her a disarming smile. “Does it matter to you?”

Diana turned her face towards his, her eyes roaming over his features. 

He watched her face smooth out as something inside of her settled. And then she leaned forward and brushed her lips to his. “No, it doesn’t.”

Steve kissed her again; and again, for perhaps the thousandth time in the past few hours, he thought, _I am so in love with this woman_.

“So, what do you want to do?” he asked when she drew back. 

“We never got a chance to—” she paused, and Steve watched another memory pull to the surface. Her hand slipped into his, fingers twining together. “To do what people do when there are no wars to fight. I suppose we could try that and see where it takes us. If that is what you want, too.”

Steve arched an eyebrow at her.

_“If?”_

He trailed a pointed gaze along her body beneath the sheet, the memory of everything they had done in the past couple of hours making the heat rise up the back of his neck and his belly grow warm with desire. 

Diana rolled her eyes, shaking her head a little — amused and exasperated in equal measure.

“I didn’t want to presume.”

“I did not find you at all presumptuous, earlier,” Steve promised quickly, watching her eyes light up. He lifted the knot of their hands to his mouth and kissed her fingers. “In fact, you can go ahead and be as presumptuous as you want to be.” 

A smile broke across her face, so radiant and bright it could chase away the night.

“I can work on that.” 

* * *

They fell into a pattern that was as easy as breathing. Almost as if their lives were two pieces of a puzzle meant to fit together, and once that happened, nothing else mattered. 

There were moments when Steve couldn't help but feel the stretch of time between them acutely and achingly. Moments that left him with the sensation of standing on the edge of a void that he could see neither the bottom, nor the other side of. Like when Diana spoke of something that had happened to her or his friends sometime in the past six decades. Or when some aspect of the new world around Steve would puzzle him into a stupor and leave his mind swimming. Each time, it would leave him feeling a little hollow, the sorrow for everything he had missed filling him to the brim.

And then there were instances when it would be like they had merely picked up where they'd left off, having spent only a few days apart. Like there was nothing left unsaid between them and everything made perfect sense.

And the contrast between the two would leave Steve disoriented and scrambling to keep up. 

It surprised him how much he had managed to pick up about Diana in the brief time they'd spent together in 1918, and how much of it still rang true all these years later. Small things that, in retrospect, didn't feel small at all. The observation made his heart swell with affection in his chest and he revelled in that feeling immensely for reasons he couldn't explain even to himself. 

He wondered if it would still be the case a hundred, or five hundred, or a thousand years from now. If Diana was going to stay, well, _Diana_ for the rest of eternity, her essence unchanged even though the world continued to spin faster and faster. And he hoped, oh how he hoped that he would be around to see it for himself.

One morning a month later, Steve’s mind snapped into wakefulness minutes after dawn, when the day outside was still grey and soft around the edges.

It had started to snow three days ago and had barely stopped since then. Big, dime-sized flakes falling from the sky and forming snowdrifts on the sidewalks and windowsills until the world seemed to be half-buried beneath a blanket of white. 

Beside him, Diana was still asleep, curled in on herself, her hand tucked under the pillow and her breathing deep and even. For a moment, Steve contemplated abandoning his plan and simply sliding his arm around her and falling back asleep for a few more hours — the weather sure was right for that. Or better yet, tracing his hand along the length of her spine to wake her and—

He pushed the thought away and slid from under the covers while his resolve still held. Away from the warmth of her, he missed it instantly, but today, he was a man on a mission. And like any man on a mission, he needed to stay focused, even if it meant leaving an actual goddess behind for a little while. 

In the dim light of the morning that had yet to fully arrive, he put on his clothes. Clothes that he still found odd and out of place in, like something that wasn’t entirely his even though they were comfortable and fit well. He tried not to think about it any more than he absolutely needed to. Surely, it wasn’t any worse for him than it had been for Diana when he had first brought her to his world.

And weren’t spies supposed to be perfectly adaptable?

In the living room, standing near the bureau where Diana kept all sorts of documents and money, Steve counted out a few bills, making sure to note how much he took to repay her later… when he got a job. (He was working on that.) And then, with one last glance through the bedroom door at the still sleeping Diana, he slipped out of her apartment, heading to the market two blocks away.

He had a mission to accomplish, alright.

An hour later, he was setting up the table for breakfast. The coffee was brewing in the coffee machine — if there was one thing that Steve was eternally amazed by and grateful for, aside from the woman he was living and sharing a bed with, it was the coffee machine — and the eggs were whisked and ready to go on the skillet. He was just pulling the plates from the cupboard when Diana stepped into the kitchen.

“What is this all about?” she asked.

Steve jerked around, startled, and like every time he had looked at her before, his jaw went a little slack. 

She was wearing a robe, and if his past experience was any indication, there was probably nothing underneath it. He was tempted, oh so tempted to tug at the belt and let it shimmy down her shoulders and start the day the way they’d started most of them over the past month.

He forced himself to drag his gaze up to her face (not that that made it easier). In this light, relaxed and with the remnants of sleep still lurking behind her eyes, she looked painfully young despite being older than the world as Steve knew it. And like each time that thought had crossed his mind, his chest constricted with fierce tenderness.

“This is… ah, breakfast,” he said, setting the plates down.

Diana pressed her lips together around a smile, one eyebrow arched quizzically. “I can see that. And this?” she asked, pointing towards the living room and the Christmas tree tucked in the corner between the couch and the balcony.

Steve’s lips twitched, her question kicking him into action.

“Well, this...” he started and trailed off. 

He moved around the table and towards her. With his hands curled over her sides, he dipped his head and kissed her, lingering for a long moment when her palms came to rest on his face.

“Morning,” he murmured after he pulled back.

Diana smiled, her eyes twinkling with amusement. “Good morning.”

He glanced at the table. “I was hoping to get this ready before you were up,” he admitted.

She was watching him, waiting.

Steve squinted at the tree. “See, I’ve been thinking…”

“Yes, you seem to do that a lot,” Diana agreed nonchalantly, following his gaze. And it took him a great deal of effort to ignore the suggestive undertone in her voice and the less than subtle innuendo.

The idea had struck him a couple of days ago when, after haven’t even thought about Christmas or what this time of year entailed (because he was too damn caught up in being alive and in love to care), Steve had spotted a brightly decorated tree at the department store, all tinsel and colours and twinkling lights.

It brought an avalanche of memories — the scraggy tree they would have in the family room when he was a child, decorated with ribbons and hand-made ornaments, frosted-over windows and his mother’s bright smile. The way that time of year had always felt special even though they hadn’t had much. He hadn’t thought of that in a very long time, and he wished he had now. Wished he’d taken a moment to remember.

And he had thought then—

Diana had told him on their first night together in 1984 that'd she'd wished for him and for everything they had missed. But the truth was that Steve had wished for things, too. On that night in Veld when they'd danced in the snow and loved each other for the first time, he had wished for something real with her, something normal. Something that wasn't bloodbath and carnage. The world that Steve could only barely remember by then. 

But they had it now, didn't they? Life the way it was meant to be. And what could be more normal and real than this? Than a tree and bright lights, and maybe he could even try to replicate his mother's pie. (No promises on the outcome, though.)

“I haven’t even thought of a Christmas tree since 1916,” he said, tracing his fingers idly along Diana’s collar bone and ignoring the heat creeping up his neck from just this small contact. “And I don’t know what your protocol about these things is, but I just thought—I thought that maybe we could…”

It had all sounded so much better in his head, earlier. He took a breath and looked up. Some smooth composed spy he was.

“I haven’t done anything, since Etta,” Diana said softly, her voice wistful but her smile fond. “She used to love it. Charlie, too. He would send me a card every year, until…” She shook her head and then looked up at him, her gaze finding Steve’s. “I still have them, cards and letters. If you want to see.”

He nodded as warmth sparked somewhere under his ribs and unfurled in his chest. “I’d like that.”

They did that, going through the box of old letters and photographs, all faded but scrupulously preserved. History encapsulated. Diana added more stories, some sad but most happy, filling in the blanks in Steve’s mind. About a burned dinner that left everyone scrambling to pull together a meal basically from scraps and Sameer’s passionate rendition of a song that got one of the neighbours calling the police. About the protest march that had nearly got Etta arrested and that time when Charlie, true to himself, punched a man who had made a crude comment about Diana on the street and broke one of his fingers. And how Sameer had taught Diana to play cards and she cleaned him of his cash that first time. He had never played with her again, and she suspected he’d held a grudge, too.

Steve laughed until his face hurt, marvelling in having once known people so remarkable and falling in love with all of them all over again in a way he never knew was possible, his heart aching from being so full.

They picked up two boxes of ornaments from the store — angels and bows and balls in every colour — and he watched Diana arrange them on the tree however she pleased, content in merely being there, in the presence of her glorious smile.

It was later that night, a little over a month after Steve’s miraculous return that it finally sunk that he was not imagining any of this. That it wasn’t an illusion which could burst like a bubble before his eyes. That he was truly back and this was his life now, and the future that was stretching before him and Diana was infinite in its possibilities.

And maybe he was a man out of time.

Maybe he always would be.

But here he was, finally home. 

* * *

There were moments in Diana's life that she knew she was going to remember for the rest of forever. 

Like the first time she had hefted a sword, nearly yanking her shoulder out of its socket when she’d taken a swing.

Or when she had watched the light go out of Antiope's eyes on that beach, her blood on Diana's hands and the grief of it slashing something inside of her in half.

Or when the night sky had lit up with the brightest fire she had ever seen, and she had screamed and screamed because it hurt to feel so much of everything but the one she had been calling for was no longer there to hear her.

Or when Diana had gone to say hello to an old friend only to come face to face with a ghost she had spent the past half a century running away from, after he had left her with a pain so deep that even all these years later, her soul was still bleeding.

One would think that being a demigod, she would know not to be surprised by anything. (Had she not seen everything there was to see, after all?)

One would be wrong about that. 

There had to be an answer to it all, an explanation that would make sense to her even if it wouldn't to anyone else. 

Five weeks later, and she was no closer to finding it than she had been that day when they stood on the concourse and Steve had looked at her with those blue eyes, bright with reverence and affection, and her heart beat so fast she thought it might burst right out of her ribcage. 

Five weeks of not having to remember the colour of his eyes or the cadence of his voice or the touch of his hands, or what it was like to wake up in the night to the sound of Steve’s breathing. She didn’t need to _remember_ because he was there, alive and safe and _hers_.

Five weeks was what it took her to decide that she didn’t care for an answer. Be it a trick of magic or a fluke or her not-so-dead relatives choosing to grant her a gift — if her mother was around, Diana was certain she would have found the latter amusing — it was hard to keep this matter close to the top of her ever-growing list of priorities. In the end, she simply decided that having him back was enough. And was one really meant to have all the answers, anyway?

(If one day Steve chose to seek the explanation of his miraculous return then so be it. Until then, Diana was content to have him back, details be damned.)

She still had nightmares, although not as often as Steve, and not as intense anymore.

“I've had a long time to deal with them,” Diana told him when he'd awoken from one for the third night in a row, his body covered with a sheen of cold sweat and his breath trapped in his throat. Although, admittedly, it sounded like a weak consolation, even to her ears. She wished she could shield him from them, protect him from the memories stained with blood.

Hers were always about an ink-black sky and a bright fire and being stripped of her strength and the sense of loss so consuming she was frightened every time she would never find her way back, stuck for eternity in that world of endless hopelessness. 

But they didn't scare Diana as much as they used to because all she had to do now was roll over and reach for him. And Steve would be right there, gathering her in his arms and holding her against him until the sharpness of her dreams ebbed and the frantic gallop of her heartbeat steadied. 

“I love you,” she whispered each time, revelling even months later in the freedom of being able to say it to a living, breathing person and not a memory.

“I love you, too.”

After the war — the first one; the one that had started it all — Diana used to think that she would have done anything to have Steve back. To undo those fifteen minutes that had changed everything and have the life they could have had if only the stars were aligned differently.

But looking at him now — with a book on her couch, or shuffling into the kitchen in the morning, just barely awake, or sitting across from her at the table in a restaurant, or even when she’d catch a fleeting smile from him from across the room — Diana knew she wouldn’t have given this up for anything in the world. That, ultimately, every moment spent apart was worth it in the end, a million times over.

“He is quite… something,” Barbara Ann said to Diana once after Steve dropped by her office, stunning a handful of her colleagues into silence with his charm and dashing looks.

Pressing her lips around a smile, Diana had glanced at the photo of the two of them sitting on her desk now. “That he is,” she agreed.

Maybe one day they would find every answer the universe had to offer, or maybe they would stop asking questions.

What mattered in this instant was that they had time. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please feel free to rant, yell, talk to me about WW84 or generally tell me what you thought of this story :) Any feedback and yelling are always much appreciated. 
> 
> And please take care and be kind to yourselves.

**Author's Note:**

> The second part is coming shortly! 
> 
> Thanks for reading, and a million thanks to **akajb** for betaing! 
> 
> Feedback is much appreciated! I will love you forever :)


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